Crystal clear and filled to the brim with trenchant insights into why most teams usually flounder. In short, Google researchers found individuals on the most productive teams “spoke in roughly the same proportion” as one another and were skilled at “intuiting how others felt”. Furthermore, the greater a team’s perceived psychological safety, measured by how comfortable team members felt being themselves, the greater that team’s “collective intelligence”.

Take Duhigg’s test:

Imagine you have been invited to join one of two groups.

Team A is composed of people who are all exceptionally smart and successful. When you watch a video of this group working, you see professionals who wait until a topic arises in which they are expert, and then they speak at length, explaining what the group ought to do. When someone makes a side comment, the speaker stops, reminds everyone of the agenda and pushes the meeting back on track. This team is efficient. There is no idle chitchat or long debates. The meeting ends as scheduled and disbands so everyone can get back to their desks.

Team B is different. It’s evenly divided between successful executives and middle managers with few professional accomplishments. Teammates jump in and out of discussions. People interject and complete one another’s thoughts. When a team member abruptly changes the topic, the rest of the group follows him off the agenda. At the end of the meeting, the meeting doesn’t actually end: Everyone sits around to gossip and talk about their lives.

Which group would you rather join?

Here’s the right answer based on the literature that informed the researchers’ work:

. . .you should probably opt for Team B. Team A may be filled with smart people, all optimized for peak individual efficiency. But the group’s norms discourage equal speaking; there are few exchanges of the kind of personal information that lets teammates pick up on what people are feeling or leaving unsaid. There’s a good chance the members of Team A will continue to act like individuals once they come together, and there’s little to suggest that, as a group, they will become more collectively intelligent.

In contrast, on Team B, people may speak over one another, go on tangents and socialize instead of remaining focused on the agenda. The team may seem inefficient to a casual observer. But all the team members speak as much as they need to. They are sensitive to one another’s moods and share personal stories and emotions. While Team B might not contain as many individual stars, the sum will be greater than its parts.

Google’s researchers conclude:

“. . . no one wants to put on a ‘work face’ when they get to the office. No one wants to leave part of their personality and inner life at home. But to be fully present at work, to feel ‘psychologically safe,’ we must know that we can be free enough, sometimes, to share the things that scare us without fear of recriminations. We must be able to talk about what is messy or sad, to have hard conversations with colleagues who are driving us crazy. We can’t be focused just on efficiency. Rather, when we start the morning by collaborating with a team of engineers and then send emails to our marketing colleagues and then jump on a conference call, we want to know that those people really hear us. We want to know that work is more than just labor.”

These take-aways are equally applicable to most non-work teams. In my experience, a recurring challenge in applying these lessons is team members who dominate discussions often lack self awareness. Even beginning teamwork with an explicit emphasis on the importance of balanced participation sometimes does little to prevent the most loquacious among us from repeatedly dominating discussions. Those most loquacious team members also don’t realize their teammates quickly fatigue, and shortly thereafter, begin tuning them out.

Another challenge in improving teamwork is people have a multitude of negative team experiences as points of reference for every positive one; as a result, they anticipate one or a few people dominating and scant attention being paid to people’s feelings.

That’s why this research deserves a large audience. It not only illuminates why groups often get sideways, but provides a roadmap for improved work and non-work teamwork.

One of the nice things about living in the upper left hand corner of the country is getting a Canadian television channel which airs my current fav television show, Grand Designs.

Every weekday I record the hour long show, and then, in the evenings, watch it while fast forwarding through commercials. The format is simple, each episode Kevin McCloud follows one UK couple through the home building process. In recent years I’ve grown keenly interested in architecture and design, but I enjoy the show for more subtle reasons too.

For example, I really like the way Kevin does what the vast majority of us find so difficult. He routinely befriends the builders while honestly and directly confronting them about their missteps. In other words, he masterfully leverages his rapport with the builders to speak truthfully about their projects.

Other take-aways from a selective sample of middle class to well-to-do Brit builders:

People always underestimate how long a build is going to take. Usually by about 50%. Why is that common knowledge? When will more (or some) homebuilders begin extending their initial estimated timelines?

People always underestimate how much a build is going to cost. Usually by 20%+. The standard “contingency” line in a budget is 10%.

People almost always take on more debt than intended (see number 2).

What’s most intriguing about the show is the inspiring nature of the partnerships, whether straight or gay, married or not. Every relationship is tested by a home build, it’s something different every day often for a year plus. The participants on Grand Designs have common values and visions and just keep getting on despite the unforeseen problems, the endless delays, the mounting debt. The way their friendships carry the day is life affirming.

Daylight savings is around the corner, meaning it’s time to shave the legs, break out new tires, and psych the hell up.

“Reynaldo,” fellow cyclists have repeatedly asked, “how the heck do you hang so well when you can’t sprint worth shit and we ride twice as much as you?”

I’m only going to explain this once so get some paper and a pencil. I do it several ways, from more to less obvious.

I have human growth hormone sent to the crib in the Good Wife’s name. I have not had to throw her under the bus yet, but I’m prepared for that inevitability.

I employ a small, undetectable motor in the frame of my bike.

I draft as if I came attached to your back wheel.

When I get to the front, I immediately pull off to the left, turn back while raising my right arm, and ask “Where are we going again?” Or “Did someone say someone flatted?” Or “Are we all together?” Variety is critical.

I attack during nature breaks.

I attack right after sprints.

I attack at the slightest hint of a mechanical.

I attack at yellow lights and then pretend not to hear when the others yell “HOLD UP!”

It’s probably the roids, but whenever things start getting stretched out, I demand that the person in front of me “Bridge up dammit!”

Like my dermatologists are so fond of doing to my basal cell skin cancers, I’d like to cut football out of my life. Literally throw a switch and not follow it anymore, high school, college, pro.

Now that we know about CTE’s devastating effects on players, it feels too much like watching Christians and lions in an ancient Roman Coliseum. Except in this case, both sides lose.

The title of this post is too optimistic. I’m not sure I can throw the “no football” switch. “I Want To Quit Football” would’ve been too wordy. I grew up playing football so I’m talking about severing a childhood root. And I enjoy following sports more generally and it’s impossible to watch SportsCenter or listen to Dan Patrick without half of the content, half of the year, being football-related.

In 2016, in the Pacific Northwest, you can be disappeared for not being a “12”, the name given to Seattle Seahawk fanatics. Lots of (oddly elderly) people have taken to wearing Russell Wilson jerseys to church in an apparent effort to curry God’s favor. To my Canadian friends to the north, imagine how ostracized you’d be if you gave up hockey.

I didn’t care about either team, but still watched about 50 minutes of the SupBowl, 20 live and 30 at enhanced Tivo-speeds. Besides the brain injuries, I can’t take the pace of play with the incessant challenges, television timeouts, injury time, and commercials. Hey Roger, I have a dog that needs walking, a work project that I’m behind on, a house that needs packing up. Here’s an idea that only someone suffering from CTE might propose, let’s take 10 minutes from the billion viewers to determine if the receiver had possession. That’s a well spent 10 billion minutes.

There were no concussions at halftime despite an angry dance-off between Bruno’s boys and Bey’s girls. They can dance some, but if they ever play one-on-one basketball, I’m going with the Queen. She can just back him down. And of course it’s the one time of year that the commercials are actually worth watching. I’m going to buy a jeep and then the GalPal is going to throw herself on me. Or I’m asking for my money back.

That pgraph right there highlights the challenge. You can’t be culturally literate without knowing somethin’ somethin’ about football. If I somehow find it within myself to stop watching, I’ll continue to see headlines and read boxscores. Will even that make me complicit in the violence?

I’m confident I can go about eight months without watching a single snap. Here’s hoping even longer.

William Morris was a 19th Century English textile designer, artist, writer, socialist, and Marxist. I imagine him as a calmer, more serene Bernie Sanders.

Among other memorable quotes, Morris said, “Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” Same goes for cars, work offices, garages.

Wonderful goal, but most of what’s stored in our residences was helpful once, but isn’t anymore (ethernet cables, college texts, the golf shag bag). Or we think it may be helpful at some point in the future even though it hasn’t been for a long time (a gazillion screws, nuts and bolts; a road atlas, the golf shag bag). When it comes to our possessions, we mostly live in the past and future.

Similarly, we’re surrounded by stuff we found beautiful at one time. If we’re honest, a small subset of what we’re surrounded by is beautiful or particularly useful with any regularity (the Gal Pal just suggested I look in the mirror). What purposes then, do the majority of our things serve?

Like historical landmarks, they create order and bred familiarity. Like old photos or friends, subconsciously, they remind us of the past. Often, they are the product of nostalgia mixed with inertia. A sedentary sentimentality confounds efforts at genuine minimalism.

Knowing that, we can be much more selective about what we save as links to our past, scanning and digitizing much of what makes the final cut. Doing that, our living spaces will grow and we’ll enjoy them more.